SACRAMENTO — Of the hundreds of bills still awaiting action as the Legislature begins its final week, none will command more attention than pension reform legislation — now expected to emerge from the Capitol after months of uncertainty.

It would be the Democrats’ signature legislation of the year — the policy triumph that’s supposed to prove to California voters how serious lawmakers are about tackling vexing budget problems as they try to persuade voters to approve Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax-hike initiative on the November ballot, Proposition 30.

“If they don’t” pass a reform package, “it’s hard to see how the initiative wins,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California.

Legislative Democrats are poised to hold conference committee hearings early this week, followed by a floor vote “well before” Friday’s midnight deadline for the legislative session. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, promised “comprehensive” fixes, which include raising the retirement age for government employees and capping their pension benefits at the state and municipal level, a plan they hope will be seen as closely resembling the governor’s 12-point proposal.

Unveiled in October, the governor’s blueprint drew praise from pension reformers. Republicans copied it word for word into bills they hoped would go before voters alongside the Democratic governor’s tax initiative.

But Democrats in the Legislature let the GOP pension bills languish and have yet to produce their own version. Most Capitol observers expect Democrats to produce a modified version of Brown’s pension reforms — watered down to satisfy the public employee unions that represent a core Democratic bloc.

“We think anything that does come out will be labeled substantive, but in fact be worthless,” said Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, the Senate Republican leader.

Even if it matches Brown’s plan, some worry that political mischief is afoot. Joel Fox, president of the Small Business Action Committee, wrote on his blog that he suspects labor groups will put up a referendum on any substantial changes — after the November election.

But the governor’s office and top Democratic lawmakers insist serious pension reform is coming.

“We continue to work with the Legislature to ensure serious, lasting reforms to the state’s pension system are enacted as quickly as possible,” Brown spokesman Evan Westrup said.

Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for a labor group opposed to most pension reform, said the reform crowd will “never get everything they want” but will “be pleasantly surprised” by the Democratic proposal. He said labor leaders met last week and emerged deflated over how much will be given away.

Growing costs for public employee retirement benefits that are far richer than those available to most privately employed taxpayers have become a national concern as they siphon funding from services.

Amid Capitol inaction on Brown’s reforms, two cities — San Jose and San Diego — took reforms to voters, who overwhelmingly approved them in June. Two others — Stockton and San Bernardino — have sought bankruptcy protection, citing pension costs as a factor in their financial tailspin.

Though employee pension and retiree health costs remain a small chunk — about 6 percent — of state general-fund spending, those costs have more than doubled in a decade to more than $5 billion.

But the state also provides retirement plans for most local governments, so cities are looking to Sacramento for help with the growing costs. Sunnyvale, for example, has seen its employee pension bill rocket from zero in 2000 to $21.5 million five years ago and $30.7 million today, a figure that includes a $4 million extra payment to get ahead of anticipated future increases. As the pension tab grew, Sunnyvale’s workforce shrank from 1,000 to 845, as the city cut back on tree trimming and roadwork.

Pension reformers called much of Brown’s 12-point proposal “low-hanging fruit” that eliminates some abuses such as pension “spiking” (artificially inflating salaries in an employees’ final years) but does little to control costs. But they called other elements more substantive such as making public employees pay half the cost of their pensions and raising retirement ages for new hires, whose retirement benefit would be a “hybrid” blending smaller pensions with Social Security and a 401(k)-style savings plan.

Steinberg spokesman Mark Hedlund, however, said there were concerns that Brown’s “hybrid” retirement benefit wasn’t “fully cooked.” Lawmakers, he said, are pursuing an alternative in which up to $110,000 in salary would count toward a pension, and any earnings beyond that would go toward a managed savings plan similar to one offered by the state teacher retirement system that guarantees a modest return on contributions.

But Dan Pellissier, president of California Pension Reform and a former adviser to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said that sounds like a recipe for preserving the “$100,000 pension club” whose growing numbers have outraged taxpayers. He doubted Democratic lawmakers will significantly dent the pension problem.

“They have agreement on all the easy things,” he said. “It’s the things that actually save money that they don’t agree on.”